I’d wanted to feature Ralphie and Rennie on this year’s holiday card, but they weren’t exactly cooperative during the photo shoot; Rennie wouldn’t sit still, while Ralphie, laying listlessly under the tree, resembled a piece of roadkill dressed in pirate gear.

Luckily, Peedee saved the day! While we were taking pictures of Booty and the Beast, we had the office door closed so Peedee, Kaylee and Jayne couldn’t distract our would-be cover dogs. But as soon we finished up with Ralphie and O-Ren, I opened the door and in ran Peedee, who promptly plopped himself down right in front of the tree. First shot, and bam! Perfect. There was our FSMas card:

Because I had so much fun making Peedee’s card – and I didn’t want to leave any of the dogs out – I created a few similar cards from the “outtakes.”

Here we have Ralphie & O-Ren:

Kaylee:

and Jayne:

Creating and printing the cards is only half the battle, though; then ya gotta prepare the cards and mail ‘em out.

Usually, I address each envelope and sign the back of each card by hand, but I just wasn’t feeling it this year. Instead, I printed out 2″x2″ address labels for the envelopes, as well a generic greeting on 2″x4″ labels for the back of each photo/card. I added some artwork from www.venganza.org to give it that extra-special Pastafarian flair. All told, I think this year’s batch has been the most professional looking yet. And festive, hells yeah!

To give y’all an idea of what I did, here’s a sheet of the address labels, filled out with my mailing address for illustration:

And here’s an individual panel from the “inscription”:

If only I’d had this much success with the holiday manicotti dish I experimented with this afternoon. Not so much, though. At least it won’t go to waste; Shane says he’ll eat it. Me, I’ll be having pierogies tomorrow night. Tofu. Meh. Who needs it?

But, more on that later. For now, I have some brownies in which to drown my culinary sorrows.